down_the_hatch

so I checked my oil the other day and there was none registering on the dipstick! The engine has no leaks. I was using castrol high mileage 10w30 before I switched to the mobil1 10w40 fully synthetic. what should I do? switch oil? what's wrong with my engine? bad bearings, seals? there's only about 135k miles on it.

thanks in advance

racebum

if you're positive the 135k is accurate the engine has either been driven hard often or ran low on oil before. you have oil burning most likely due to bad rings, guides and seals. how much oil are you using anyway? the quart per 500 miles is generally when you start getting near death. it's also common for a gsr/itr to use a quart per 1500 miles

down_the_hatch

good questions. Im pretty sure its around 135k, I got the engine from an integra and put it in my civic, although I dont know the exact history of it, I know it wasnt driven hard for the most part. I'm sure it ran low on oil before also since a lot of people do that, its not hard to do since I let it go low before I checked it! hah. I also forgot to mention I do drive it hard. I dont really keep track of the mileage and how often it uses oil, but it would be a good idea to keep track of it. By the way its a b18b.

getshocked777

did it leak before you swiched to the synthetic?

down_the_hatch

u mean burn? i think so... dont remember... im sure it did. i just dont remember how much....

Jeffaj20

with mine, i get low around 2k. and i know its burning oil, i got a white car with a black *** lol

getshocked777

well there is a pro and con of using synthetic in a car with your milage. pro being synthetic doesnt burn off as fast as the normal high milage. con being that synthetic contains a additive to better help with seal life in newer engines, but if your seals are hard and brittle it has a reverse effect and makes them shrink and POSSIBLY you could be leaking from your valve guide seals and that may be were the oil is getting through.

nsxtasy

There's nothing wrong with using synthetic oil in your car. There are no disadvantages other than cost. The advantages are the resistance to breakdown when hot, and the better flow characteristics when cold.

However, I think your problem is that you are using oil that is much thicker than recommended by Honda/Acura. 5W30 is recommended as the preferred viscosity to use at all temperatures. Change to 5W30. Keep using full synthetic if you want those advantages and you don't mind paying a little more.

However, it's possible that you may still consume oil. If so, it's probably the rings, but the solution is a rebuild which will run anywhere from $2500 to $4000. Even if you're burning as much as a quart every 500 miles, as long as your gaskets aren't blown (i.e. no coolant mixed in with the oil), you can get by and it will be cheaper to just keep adding oil rather than pay for a rebuild.

down_the_hatch

10w40 too thick? what about 10w30? can i find synthetic in 5w30? someone at kragen told me to buy the lucas racing 20w50 oil. glad i didnt. and another person told me royal purple is the best. i know they make high mileage.

and with the rebuild, $2500-4000 is ridiculous. I dont know who would pay that and I dont money to waste on that either. Id rather buy another block first off.

So if its leaking from the valve guide seals where is the oil going? the combustion chamber? there's no smoke out the exhaust. and what happens if its the rings?

racebum

all of this is a bit ridiculous

none of us can guess where you are burning oil, only name the 3 common places. rings, guides and seals. it's not uncommon for it to be all 3.

2500-4000 is what a complete tear down will run, guys who say ohhh it's way less either haven't done it or consider new rings a rebuild.

still not sure what good another block would be, you would still have to spend money building it. with the one you have at least you aren't purchasing another.

if you want the easy option spend $1600 on a jdm gsr or 2500 on a type r and drop it in, less time, less work and you can sell your existing engine to make up some of the cost

nsxtasy

Honda - the people who designed and built our cars - recommends 5W30 as the preferred viscosity for our engines at all temperatures. They say you can also use 10W30 if the outside temperature doesn't get very cold in your area, but 5W30 is still preferred at all temperatures.

Yes.

The cheapest prices are the 5-gallon jugs at Walmart. Mobil 1 is around $25, Pennzoil Platinum is around $20-22 (they have a more expensive version now too), and some other brands may be even less.

Good advice.

OH_1fstgsr

iTrader: (2)

Your bumper is not necessarily getting black from your oil burn problem. An easy test is to run you finger over you bumper.
If it comes of kind of dry and sooty it is fuel. You are running rich. Getting a tune should fix this you also may need a PVC replacement.
If it smears all over you bumper it is oil. This is the beginning of a more major problem

wunfstgsr

When one of my built gsr motors started burning oil i switched to 10w-40 reg penzoil oil, and droped a can of engine restore before the oil change, it helped out a little. You can try and get new valve seals there pretty cheap under $50 and get a valve seal install tool and you can replace all your valve seals with the head still on, although iv never done this i think it would be better to remove the head and have everything fresh on the head with a valve job ect. but then it would also be wise to rebuild the block at the same time but if you wanna try a cheaper alt. try replacing the valve seals it should cost you no more than $200. And remember you can always buy a used swap that claims the motor ran healthy only to find the nice itr swap you got soon burns oil as well or eventually soon will, most jdm motors have unknown miles and are just claimed with a certain amount of miles not to mention its calculated in kil. and converted to miles so you never really know the correct miles unless you see proof of the motor being pulled with a shot of the gauge cluster but even then people swap lower mile clusters to claim the motor had that many, I have had many motors and some were built by rep. shops but still burned oil down the road, So what i did on my new setup was order a factory new ITR block and head because i was tired of spending all that money on a high end motor only to have oil burning issues. Like i predicted my new factory itr motor runs great and burns nothing at all, dynoed at 285hp @12 psi. if you ever consider building a fresh block and head consider a new itr block and head because it cost almost the same, $2,500 for the block and $1,500 for the head. You would pay close to $2,500 to rebuild a b series block and $800 for a unported head to $1,500 for a ported head. Remember the itr head is slightly ported as well!. And with a fresh factory motor you have piece of mind its gonna run great. Or you can have me build you a motor and ship it to you, i build b series motors on the side and i can have a nice motor build for you under $3,000 shipped fresh with 0 miles. The motor im currently gonna build is a 1.8l gsr block with itr pistons acl bearings ect. b16 head ported and polished nitrate coated, 3 angle valve job ect. all fresh with 0 miles and all new gaskets. anyone interested p.m me i have tons of vouches.

Jeffaj20

thanks for that, its always been dry and sooty and a guy from les schwab said i was burning oil, which is why i assumed that.
will be getting a tune soon since im starting to get a misfire. so hopefully that'll help with both lol

Davanca

When you drive your car, and you look in the rear view mirror, do you see clouds of blue smoke coming out the exhaust. Or has anyone told you that they see blue smoke coming from your exhaust.

down_the_hatch

I want a new engine anyway, I'm tired of this B18B. A poor man's type r is what I would want. But yea, it's definitely a hit or miss when buying a used engine from somewhere or someone. This engine I currently have is a great running engine. Compression was good when I tested it. Valves are adjusted. I think the head is garbage though. When I start it up cold, there's a weird noise coming from the head really close to the distributor and its hard to tell exactly what it is. I also broke a cam cap bolt a while back and have put thousands of miles on it since. I just wish I knew the condition of the internals, but I don't have x-ray vision.

Marksquizz1

Hey man I know this is a long shot but do you still build engines? I'm tired of my engine burning so much oil! I've always read these articles on Honda tech but never created an account until I saw ur post that you build them fresh with 0 miles. That's exactly what I need for my teg because I love it so much and don't want to get rid of it.

89brokendownEF

im not sure why you would use 10w40 when your cars came with 5w30
doesnt make sense to me just throw the manual out the window....

wunfstgsr

This is a 5 year old thread no need to bump it any more lat post the member must not have known it was a 5 year old post nor was abble to P.M me.

By now that engine is prolly turned into a soda cans in indonesia.

I use 5w30 non syn you dont need synthetic its just pref.but if you want go ahead people but the weight and brand is what to consider as well but theres plenty of tech in that new oil thread posted recently.

This thread is super old and null/